The Man Who Gives Treats to my Dog

Yesterday morning, as Lilith and I walked up the hill, three police SUVs drove by, blue lights lit up on the two outer ones. Near the top of the hill, I saw the cars and an ambulance in one of the townhouse parking lots. Another cop drove in the lot and parked. (Lilith took this chance to do her business.) I lingered, the ambulance went nowhere. The rest of the day I thought about the dog walking man I talk to from that court, his southern accent intact after four decades in Hawai`i, earbuds installed with Biblical lessons playing (he once saw a woman miraculously cured of cancer in a church); his large white and brown terrier mix striding along energetically. He'd often pull out treats from back home (organic) and give one to Lilith. He'd told me about how difficult it was to deal with his son, who had been in rehab many times. So I worried about the son, too. This morning I saw that son walking that dog and interrupted them, asked what had happened in their court, said I'd worried about his dad. "No, he's home reading his Bible, and I wasn't there," he said. A young white guy with Chinese writing tattooed on his right arm. When I got home, I had an answer to my question from a woman I know who lives up the hill. Her court is afflicted with troubles: the elderly couple and their mentally disabled daughter who are essentially imprisoned in their home down the stairs by the son; an alcoholic who lives with his mother and has lots of guns; the man who used to beat his puppy and screams horrible things at his son. His girlfriend finally left him. I remembered that, while talking to him once I said, "I called the cops on someone in your court who was yelling at his son," and he said, "could have been me." But that guy was yelling in pidgin, I thought. My friend up the hill assured me my dog-walking friend was who she meant; he yelled at "homo" at his son (no wonder he's on drugs). An abuser, but like so many of them, quite charming. I was worried about him, his son. I guess I still am.